This week a small story led me to discover a big story about WordPress’ dominance in online publishing. The small story was about the launch of “Flow”, a new brand that’s part of She Media. First, I went to the main SHE Media website, where you’ll find sub-brands such as SheKnows, BlogHer, and STYLECASTER. All…
We recently covered Block Club Chicago which was is built in partnership with the “Lede” platform from Alley Interactive. We’ve previously covered another Lede site called “Defector”. Lede is one of several new WordPress publishing platforms including Newspack, PaywallProject, and IndieGraf.
I’ve talked about the work of INN (Institute for Nonprofit News) regularly here on PublishPress. They are doing a superb job of building a community of new publishing start-ups. The INN has a new innovation called the Rural News Network. This is a WordPress-powered hub for local news sites, almost all powered by WordPress too….
I’ve just come across a documentary about a WordPress-powered newspaper in Iowa. The movie is called “Storm Lake” and was filmed in Storm Lake, Iowa. Check out the IMDB listing. The movie’s synopsis is, “Art Cullen and his family and colleagues at Iowa’s Storm Lake Times, fight-at the local level-for the survival of their biweekly…
Global Press has an interesting and very different business model from anything else we’ve covered here at PublishPress. Yes, they are WordPress-powered and innovative. But rather than being a traditional publisher, they are building independent news bureaus. Each bureau is staffed by local, women reporters, in some of the world’s least-covered places. They have journalists…
Pluribus News is a new start-up which is aiming to cover every state government across the United States. Pluribus launches with 6 staff members. The founder Reid Wilson worked at The Washington Post and The Hill newspaper. The other staff also join from The Hill and other papers in Washington DC. The initial plan is…
Chris Hardie is a software engineer with a deep interest in journalism. Chris worked for Automattic for five years and recently completed a master’s degree in journalism. Last week, Chris combined these two passions by acquiring Western Wayne News in Wayne County, Indiana. The paper has a WordPress site and a weekly printed edition. It…
Vince Dice is the editor of Gig Harbor Now, a nonprofit news organization in Gig Harbor, near Seattle. His publication is celebrating its first birthday this week and he has interesting story to tell, that sums up many trends with local news in 2022. For many years, Vince was connected to a newspaper called “Gig…
One central idea here at PublishPress is that this is an exciting new time for journalism. There is a large group of new publishers that are mostly non-profit, mission-driven, and powered by WordPress. This week provided excellent evidence to back up this idea. The Institute for Nonprofit News released their nominations for the “Nonprofit News…
The Local Media Association is a trade group that focuses on the business side of local media. They try to help newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations grow their bottom line. They’ve just put out a detailed report explaining what happened when several Black-owned local media outlets moved to WordPress and Newspack. This list shows…